Artist Database

VAN GINKEL, Blanche Lemco

Born

London, England, 1923

Biography synopsis

Van Ginkel grew up in Montreal, studied architecture at McGill (B.Arch, 1945), City Planning at Harvard (Master of City Planning, 1950), and established van Ginkel Associates with her husband in 1957. In 1970 she was the first woman elected to the Council of the Province of Quebec Architects Association, and in 1971 was elected an officer of PQAA. She was the first woman elected as an officer of RAIC in 1972, and became its first female Fellow in 1973. Van Ginkel was the first woman to serve as President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture from 1986-1987, and the first Canadian woman to receive the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award in 1989. She was active in CIAM and Team 10, and a founding member of the Corporation des Urbanistes du Québec. Van Ginkel worked in Canada, United States, England and France where she worked in the Atelier Le Corbusier in Paris on the Unité d’Habitation, Marseille (1948). As a principal of van Ginkel Associates, projects included urban design proposals for Manhattan and Montreal, saving Old Montreal, Bowring Park and Footbridge, St.John's Nfld (Massey Medal for Architecture 1964), the original master planning for Expo 67, and regional development in Malaysia. She has served on municipal and provincial planning commissions. Van Ginkel was the first woman appointed to a teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1951. She also taught at Harvard, Université de Montreal, McGill University, and was appointed Dean of Architecture at the University of Toronto (1977-1982) where she taught until 1992. She received the Vienna Grand Prix at the International Federation of Housing and Planning Congress (1956), Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal (1977), Canadian Citation for Citizenship (1991), Member of the Order of Canada (2000), Ordre des Urbanistes du Québec (2003). In 2005 the Doctorat Honoris Causa was bestowed upon her by Université Aix-Marseille and in 2013 by McGill University. (I Puchalski)

Media used

Architecture

Education

McGill University, 1940 - 1945

Harvard University, 1948 - 1950 (under Walter Gropius)

Memberships

Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), Fellow 1973

Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Associate

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts

Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), Life Member 1998

American Institute of Architects (AIA), Honorary Fellow 1995

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), President 1986-1987

Van Ginkel, Blanche Lemco. "Slowly and Surely (and Somewhat Painfully): More or Less the History of Women in Architecture in Canada." Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada Bulletin 17.1 (Mar. 1991): 5-11.

Van Ginkel, Blanche Lemco. "Slowly and Surely (But Somewhat Painfully): More or Less the History of Women in Architecture in Canada." Canadian Architect 38.11 (Nov. 1993): 15-17.

Van Ginkel, Blanche Lemco. Introduction. An Architect's Library of 1890: an Exhibition in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, 23 January - 29 March 1991. Ed. Philip Oldfield. Toronto: University of Toronto Library, 1991.